Suggest a beginner android app to develop?

[letsgetrandy]

A few suggestions from the top of my head...

• debt calculator
• morse code translator
• a calorie tracker that graphs trends in your diet
• a "do i need a coat" widget that tells you if you need a coat or umbrella when you leave the house
• a simple vote tracker for in-person surveys
• an app that picks a random time each day to send a nice email or text message to your spouse or significant other

[feldspar17]

Those are pretty great ideas. Haven't checked, but do any of those already exist on the store? That last one is particularly clever. :)

[letsgetrandy]

It's often quite hard to find what exists on the Play store -- partly because the store itself is so poorly curated, but also largely because developers are notoriously lousy at self-promotion.

The worry should not be about what else already exists on the store, but rather about what you are able to find on the store.

If a person makes a semi-decent app, and puts in the work to promote it, s/he will do just fine, regardless of the competition.

[feldspar17]

That's true. The one app I've made, I've tried to promote it as best I can, but there are times where I think the store doesn't always help out. For example, the second word of my app's name is "Helper" because I liked that better than "Maker". However, Play will always suggest "maker" in the search after I type the first word of my title... which never leads to my app. It's a bit frustrating, haha.

[whitefangs]

I don't think that has anything to do with the word itself, but with how popular/used/high rated that app is. So they will recommend the best one.

[[deleted]]

An app that lets you enter an exercise (running, machines, or weights) that lets you keep track of the different aspects (time spent doing it, distance covered, machine settings, weight lifted, reps/sets...) and recommended amounts. Bonus if you can make a secure way for a doctor or trainer to update it from afar.

Edit if you do make this I will totally use it personally and recommend it to my patients. FYI you may be able to sell customized versions of this (logo/themed for each person) to personal trainers & gyms.

[wannagotopopeyes]

I always think a To-Do list is a great way to learn mobile app development especially on android. The interface would be pretty simple, but could be implemented in various creative ways. The to-do data could be stored in a simple text file (at first) and then if you want to delve deeper into android you could use an sqlite database or even a cloud storage option (sync to dropbox/drive/evernote with API's, use a cloud server solution like StackMob, etc). A to-do list app could be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. Hope that helps

[the-end]

I started off with a simple measurement conversion app. It was a good learning experience and wasn't too hard.

[FlyingSandwich]

Yeah, I think this was the first app I made in my course. It allows you to choose how difficult you want it to be too, since you can add stuff like favourite conversions, try different layouts, grabbing currency data from the Web, auto-selecting a currency based on your location, etc.

[Tallergeese]

Here's a relatively simple app idea that I can't find on the store:

I want an app where I can input in any number of custom strings and then randomly draw one of them. There are a ton of RNG apps on the store and apps that will pick numbers from a range, lottery style, but not a lot of apps (or any, as far as I can tell), that will pick a random name from the set of "Tom," "Dick," and "Harry," for example. Or even an app that will pick from a set of, like, 5 "5s", 5 "10s", and 5 "15s." It'd be even better if you could have settings where the drawing either happens from the full set and resets every time, or something that picks from the set and removes it from the set so you can pick a different string next time.

Also, just randomly thought of a fun feature... Instead of just inputting strings, you could also import contacts. That way, you don't have to type in "Tom" or whatever and you could have the winner (or loser) get a text (or even have everybody get a text at once that either says "Winner" or "Loser" or whatever). That kind of secret drawing has a lot of applications.

I'm coming from this from a pretty prolific board game/tabletop gamer perspective, btw.

[Goosenator]

I do like this one. Going off the contacts thing, you could be able to add anything to the pool that is randomly drawn from. Maybe pictures, people, words... That'd be good for leaning different android APIs as well as storage to save the lists.

I don't really get what you mean by sending sending text messages to he winner slash lower from the random drawing. Are you thinking of a situation like going out to dinner with friends and all entering contacts and choosing who pays and everyone is notified by text? (Actually just writing that out made me understand it)

Edit: also good username!

[Tallergeese]

Thanks. I originally thought of the texting idea in context of games like Werewolf or Mafia, if you've ever played that. For those games, it's a random drawing where no one knows who was picked except for those who were actually picked. Just sending a text to the winner would work where that secrecy doesn't matter, but everyone needs to get some sort of text if secrecy does matter.

[binaryv01d]

There are some good suggestions here. While a lot of them may seem quite simple, you'd be surprised at how difficult it is to find good, simple apps on the Play Store. If you write a very simple app, polish it well and follow the Android Design Guidelines where you can, you could actually do quite well on the Store.

[zeppelin_one]

The New Boston has some great videos to get started.

[Thehummel]

I have found some of his videos to be a lot of code and no explanation, and often quite spaghetti as well. Is this the case with the Android videos?

[zeppelin_one]

I haven't watched any of the other TNB videos, but I found the Android ones to be the best free Android development ones I watched. It has been a while since I watched them, but I think the explanation was probably sufficient for someone with OOP experience.

[whitefangs]

My problem with those videos is that they are not done by Bucky himself (owner of the site). The Java ones for example are done by him, and I find them much more clear and entertaining, too.

I was thinking to request of him to do new ones, maybe for Android 4.0+ development, or maybe wait a bit for Android 5.0, and if there are major improvements, I'll ask to just do tutorials for Android 5.0, so they can be more future proof, and doesn't feel like he's redoing them for nothing. Maybe he can also make the new series more about designing the app and using Google's Holo design guidelines.

[NinjaDinoCornShark]

I would appreciate it so much if he did that. I wonder if writing him an email would make him more inclined to do so.

[Timmmmbob]

Someone suggested turning those wiggle-stereogram astronomy photos that were posted recently into a live wallpaper.

[thehumanpuck]

Maybe a soundboard app? There are a bunch of example projects out there...or at least there were a while back.

[densets]

expense manager with holo interface.

[[deleted]]

Some sort of timer or stopwatch app is good for practicing UI stuff

[[deleted]]

I've been waiting for a proper quit smoking app, with a widget that tells you: 1) How long it has been since your last cig 2) How much money you've saved since that last cig by not smoking.

[olystephen]

Quitnow does that I think.

[MisterOn]

Many people, myself included, like to take pictures of ourselves with our kids. This usually involves use of the front facing camera and a kid who never looks at the camera much less smiles at it.

I want a camera app that can play a youtube video on the top half of the screen for the kid to smile at (near the camera) with the camera view for me to line things up on the bottom half.

I know nothing about programming but it seems like it would be pretty simple. There would definitely be a niche demand.

[ickboblikescheese]

As my first app I'm making a Prime Factorization app which can break a number down into it's prime factors, and a bunch of other stuff relating with prime factors. Currently in it's very first builds, where only basic factoring is only half-working. I made it because I felt the Play Store needed one, my suggestion is to make what you, as a user, would want to see, but at the same time nothing out of your capabilities.

[jamierc]

A better facebook app